Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences
To investigate whether people can implicitly learn regularities in a social context, we developed a new implicit sequence learning task combining elements from classic false belief and serial reaction time tasks. Participants learned that protagonists were offered flowers at four locations. The prot...
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doaj-57c120040fe546a780e81b9918ef84272021-03-26T06:36:56ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782021-03-011210.3389/fpsyg.2021.643594643594Implicit Learning of True and False Belief SequencesQianying Ma0Elien Heleven1Giulia Funghi2Min Pu3Kris Baetens4Natacha Deroost5Frank Van Overwalle6Department of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumDepartment of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumDepartment of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, ItalyDepartment of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumDepartment of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumDepartment of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumDepartment of Psychology and Center for Neuroscience, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumTo investigate whether people can implicitly learn regularities in a social context, we developed a new implicit sequence learning task combining elements from classic false belief and serial reaction time tasks. Participants learned that protagonists were offered flowers at four locations. The protagonists' beliefs concerning the flowers were true or false, depending on their orientation, respectively, toward the scene (so that the flowers could be seen) or away from it. Unbeknown to the participants, there was a fixed belief-related sequence involving three dimensions (identity of the two protagonists, true-false belief orientation held by the protagonists, and flower location as believed by the protagonists). Participants had to indicate as fast as possible where the flowers were located (Experiment 1), or how many flowers were given (Experiment 2) according to the protagonists. Experiment 1 combined perceptual and motor processes (as both the belief-related sequence and motor responses referred to location), whereas Experiment 2 unconfounded the sequence and motor responses, allowing to investigate pure perceptual implicit learning. For reasons of comparison, two non-social conditions were created in Experiment 2 by replacing the protagonists with two non-social objects—colored cameras or shapes. Results revealed significant implicit sequence learning of all belief-related dimensions in Experiment 1, and of true-false belief orientation in Experiment 2, even without a motor confound. Importantly, there were faster reaction times and stronger sequence learning effects in the social than in the non-social conditions. The present findings demonstrate for the first time that people are able to implicitly learn belief-related sequences.https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643594/fullserial reaction time taskfalse belief tasksocial sequence learninggo/no go taskfalse photograph task |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Qianying Ma Elien Heleven Giulia Funghi Min Pu Kris Baetens Natacha Deroost Frank Van Overwalle |
spellingShingle |
Qianying Ma Elien Heleven Giulia Funghi Min Pu Kris Baetens Natacha Deroost Frank Van Overwalle Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences Frontiers in Psychology serial reaction time task false belief task social sequence learning go/no go task false photograph task |
author_facet |
Qianying Ma Elien Heleven Giulia Funghi Min Pu Kris Baetens Natacha Deroost Frank Van Overwalle |
author_sort |
Qianying Ma |
title |
Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences |
title_short |
Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences |
title_full |
Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences |
title_fullStr |
Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences |
title_full_unstemmed |
Implicit Learning of True and False Belief Sequences |
title_sort |
implicit learning of true and false belief sequences |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Psychology |
issn |
1664-1078 |
publishDate |
2021-03-01 |
description |
To investigate whether people can implicitly learn regularities in a social context, we developed a new implicit sequence learning task combining elements from classic false belief and serial reaction time tasks. Participants learned that protagonists were offered flowers at four locations. The protagonists' beliefs concerning the flowers were true or false, depending on their orientation, respectively, toward the scene (so that the flowers could be seen) or away from it. Unbeknown to the participants, there was a fixed belief-related sequence involving three dimensions (identity of the two protagonists, true-false belief orientation held by the protagonists, and flower location as believed by the protagonists). Participants had to indicate as fast as possible where the flowers were located (Experiment 1), or how many flowers were given (Experiment 2) according to the protagonists. Experiment 1 combined perceptual and motor processes (as both the belief-related sequence and motor responses referred to location), whereas Experiment 2 unconfounded the sequence and motor responses, allowing to investigate pure perceptual implicit learning. For reasons of comparison, two non-social conditions were created in Experiment 2 by replacing the protagonists with two non-social objects—colored cameras or shapes. Results revealed significant implicit sequence learning of all belief-related dimensions in Experiment 1, and of true-false belief orientation in Experiment 2, even without a motor confound. Importantly, there were faster reaction times and stronger sequence learning effects in the social than in the non-social conditions. The present findings demonstrate for the first time that people are able to implicitly learn belief-related sequences. |
topic |
serial reaction time task false belief task social sequence learning go/no go task false photograph task |
url |
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.643594/full |
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